dealing with tech

  Yesterday I thought I would attempt to consolidate all my services. Internet, television and telephone. To say it was a smooth transition would be like saying the Titantic had a smooth voyage. Fortunately, however I haven't sunk, yet. Taking on water for sure but bailing it pretty fast too. So, I spent about an hour and a half with the Comcast/Xfinity representative. Taxing, you bet. It's like attempting to talk to someone in a foreign language when you only understand a few words. Frustrating to say the least. Gigabytes, megabytes, routers, modems, dual plan, single plan, what equipment do you need, and the conversation went on. How much data do you need? I don't know. Do you want the unlimited plan? I don't know. Are you bringing your own phone? It's cheaper if you bring your own number. They decided to give me two new phones if I kept my numbers. Well, okay. But then I needed my account number and transfer pins for both phones. Had to call Consumer Celluar for that. They were experiencing high call volume and I had to wait 45 minutes for them to answer the phone! Finally get that and the representative says, you only need one transfer pin number. Ok, thank you. Xfinity however has a different requirement, they want two pin numbers! So their representative calls and gets answered immediately! Could have saved me an hour had they done that first. But, ok we got the pin numbers. Now there is an issue with the "porting" whatever that is. Another call , to India judging by the accent of the person talking, and a mere fifteen minutes later, the port is cleared. So, what is the password for your Google account? I don't know. No problem, we can reset your password. Apparently they didn't need my password after all as they gained access in just a few clicks! I had to create a new password once I got home. And all of that is another issue for us tech challenged folks. Trying to keep all the passwords organized and what goes to what is a headache. And then we need to migrate the data. No problem, there is an app for that, or so I'm told. The young lady assisting me is browsing her pictures while talking to me and pushing buttons on my phone. I am remaining calm however. 

 Well, I have two new phones this morning and a new phone plan. It will save me about forty dollars a month over the old plan. Now all I have to do is figure out how to navigate the new phone. Oh, and reinstall apps, you have to have apps! But I've been told there is an app for that too. An app that installs apps from your old phone, What will they think of next? Later today I begin to deal with Dish network to get my service stopped and their equipment returned. And of course there is the internet service too. I'm told not to worry, the self install kit is on its' way. If I can't do it though a professional installer will come for a mere one hundred dollars and screw the wires together for me. Call me a glutton for punishment but I will do it myself. I'll write a blog about it afterward complaining. it's what I do. 

 The bottom line in all of this is simply in understanding the terms and terminology. It's a different language. The young people know this language but resist sharing that information with us older folks. I have asked for an explanation in plain English. Now that seemed to confuse that young person. I wonder if they can explain it? I have doubts. I'm still not sure what happened.